Puzzle by Nora Phoenix
11
He couldn’t concentrate. Branson pushed his chair back from his desk and rubbed his temples. A faint headache brewed behind his eyes, the result of a night of restless sleep where nightmares in which his father was dying kept waking him up, gasping for air. Twenty-four hours before, things had been fine…and then everything had shifted.
The surgery had been scheduled for four days later—the delay caused by the doctors wanting to run more tests first—and Branson had told his team leader, Weston, he’d be taking that day off. Weston had been supportive, though Branson knew that the timing couldn’t have been worse. Now that they knew who Hamza Bashir was—which Branson had only told Weston once he’d come back from the hospital and could think somewhat straight again—his absence was a big hindrance in making progress in the investigation. It couldn’t be helped.
To his credit, Weston hadn’t shown even a hint of frustration. They had a meeting with Coulson and Seth scheduled for the next day, and the Director of National Intelligence had already briefed the president. Weston had reached out to their British counterparts for help, as well as a few handpicked foreign intelligence agencies who had excellent contacts in the region. Hopefully, they’d be able to make progress together. Al Saalihin’s attacks had been against the US, but other countries were all too aware of the risks of this new terrorist cell growing. Of course, the CIA hadn’t shared the suspected link with Kingmakers yet. That couldn’t leak before they had cold hard evidence.
“Hey,” a soft voice spoke behind him, and Branson spun around. It didn’t happen often people were able to surprise him, least of all Ryder, who couldn’t ever be accused of being stealthy.
“Hi.”
Ryder jammed his hands into his pockets, but the How are you holding up? Branson had expected never came. “Are you hungry?” Ryder asked instead.
Branson frowned. “What?”
“It’s lunchtime. Are you hungry?”
“It is?” Shit, he hadn’t even noticed it was past noon already. “Not really, to be honest.”
“You owe me a lunch.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yesterday, we were supposed to go out for lunch to celebrate your big breakthrough, and it never happened, so I’m collecting my debt.”
Branson’s heart softened. Ryder’s phrasing might be slightly awkward, but the deeper intention was sweet. He was reaching out to Branson, attempting to distract him. “True. Let’s go.”
Ryder’s face lit up, and Branson’s belly grew warm. He loved Ryder’s smile.
In the cafeteria, Ryder got his usual sandwich while Branson opted for the chicken burger with fries and coleslaw. Not healthy, but he couldn’t care less. Now that he’d smelled the food, his stomach had changed its mind about craving sustenance.
“Thank you again for driving me yesterday,” he said once they'd settled at their table in the back. Ryder always picked the same one.
“No problem.”
Branson cocked his head. “I keep waiting for you to ask the expected questions. About my dad, I mean.”
Ryder shrugged. “I figured if you wanted to talk about it, you’d bring it up yourself. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to share personal things with me. After all, we’re coworkers, not friends.”
For some reason, that stung. “We could be.”
“Friends?”
Branson nodded.
Ryder blinked a few times as he studied Branson, then turned his attention back to his plate. “Why would you want to be friends with me? I’d think someone like you had plenty of friends.”
Ouch. Ryder had intended it as a compliment, no doubt, but the realization that he didn’t have friends left Branson aching inside again. How had that happened? He’d always been someone who loved having people around him. He was a social butterfly, and he found it easy to connect with all kinds of people. So why hadn’t he managed to cultivate deep friendships over the years?
“I actually don’t have that many friends,” he said, surprising himself by admitting the truth to Ryder.
Ryder’s hand stopped halfway to his mouth, and he slowly put his sandwich down. “You don’t?”
“No. I realized that yesterday, which was a little unsettling, I’ll admit.”
Ryder opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“What did you want to say?” Branson asked.
“Nothing. No, that’s not true. I did think of something, but then I decided that was rude to ask, so I didn’t. A rare case of my filter functioning properly.”
Branson chuckled at the self-deprecating remark. “I don’t mind you being direct.”
“No? That makes you an exception. Most people don’t appreciate it.”
Branson shrugged. “I like knowing where I stand. You don’t hide your feelings, and that saves me a lot of guesswork.”
Ryder rolled his eyes. “I couldn’t hide it if I tried. I’m, like, the worst actor on the planet. We had to perform this shortened Macbeth play in my junior year of high school, and my English teacher thought it would be a good idea to give me a speaking part. I warned him I would fuck it up, and lo and behold, I fucked it up. I can’t act. Memorizing the lines, no problem, but delivering them with even a modicum of emotions, nope.”
Branson laughed, and for a few moments, his chest felt loose and free of the tightness that had invaded him after hearing the news about his dad. “I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”
“I beg to differ, but you don’t have to take my word for it. It’s all been recorded for posterity… My parents digitalized all their old tapes from their video camera, so you can now watch seventeen-year-old me in all my puberty glory. Hypothetically, if I were ever to give you access to said tape.”
Branson laughed even louder. He’d never known Ryder could be this funny, but his dry humor cracked him up. Where had that been hiding the whole time? “What do I have to do to, to persuade you to let me see that?”
Ryder cocked his head. “I’ll consider it.”
“Okay, I’ll help you remember, no worries. But in the meantime, what did you want to ask and then decided not to?”
Ryder averted his eyes, playing with the last bits of his sandwich. “I was curious how someone like you couldn’t have friends.”
“Someone like me?”
“Yeah, you’re… You’re so easygoing, so social. You talk to everyone, and everyone likes you. Plus, you’re…” He gestured at Branson as if that said it all, and Branson quirked an eyebrow.
“I’m what?”
Ryder stubbornly kept his gaze downward. “Attractive. You’re attractive. As you damn well know, I suspect.”
“Thank you.”
Finally, Ryder looked up. “Thank you?”
“That’s the appropriate reaction when someone compliments you, isn’t it?”
Ryder blinked. “I meant it more like… It was a statement of a fact.”
“Mmm, doesn’t make it less of a compliment. Maybe even more, since you clearly didn’t say it to butter me up.”
Ryder seemed horrified at that suggestion. “Why on earth would I want to do that? And that’s providing I’d even know how to do it in the first place.”
“I don’t know, but it’s a hypothetical case, so let’s get back to what we were talking about. Me and my lack of friends.”
“You don’t have to answer that question.”
“I know. I’m not even sure I can. Like I said, I only realized it yesterday, and I haven’t figured out the cause.”
Ryder bit his lip. “At the risk of offending you, but how can you not realize you don’t have friends?”
How indeed? Branson wished he knew. Had he been so out of touch with himself? “The truth is that I don’t have a clue. I should, obviously, but… I don’t think I ever missed having friends. Between my work and my social life, I kept myself plenty busy.”
“Your social life? Isn’t that the same as hanging out with friends?”
“That depends on your definition of a friend. I consider someone a friend when I wouldn’t hesitate to call them for help if I needed it, and the truth is that right now, I can’t think of anyone I’d feel comfortable enough reaching out to. I have a boatload of acquaintances who would be there in a second if I announced something fun and exciting or promised them a good time, but they won’t show up for this. That, and an app full of hookups.”
He wasn’t even sure why he’d added that last line, but Ryder almost choked on his chips. “H-hookups?”
Branson raised an eyebrow. “You’re familiar with the concept of a hookup app like Grindr and similar ones, I assume?”
“Of course… Though I haven’t had… Up until recently, I was in a committed relationship, or at least, I thought I was, so I haven’t used one in years.”
He’d thought he was? That sounded like his ex had cheated on him, and anger bubbled up inside Branson. He loved fucking and enjoyed sex, but he wanted nothing to do with cheaters. He didn’t always know if someone who wanted to hook up with him was involved with someone else, but he’d become an expert at picking up signs, and if he suspected even a sliver, he was out. Loyalty was crucial to him. No judgment for those for whom monogamy wasn’t important, but he couldn’t do it.
“Well, I used them a lot until…” He thought of Seth and the crazy idea that had taken hold of him that he could’ve seen himself in a relationship with him. Not anymore, obviously. The man was besotted with Coulson, but even then, they might not be as good a fit as Branson had thought. Nevertheless, it had changed something in him, although it had taken him a while to realize. For the first time in his life, he wanted more. He was done with the anonymous sex, no matter how good it was.
“Until what?”
He sighed. “Until something happened that made me think I should maybe aim higher than mere sex. Like a relationship.”
“Trust me, relationships are overrated. If I could do it all over again, I would…” Ryder let out a long sigh, and his shoulders stooped. “I don’t know what I would do, but I wouldn’t spend so many years with a guy who wasn’t on the same page with honesty and monogamy.”
That confirmed the cheating, but Branson couldn’t resist asking the obvious question anyway. “He cheated on you?”
After a short hesitation, Ryder nodded. “Repeatedly, I found out later. In fact, he went behind my back for the entire time we were together.”
“What a dick.”
Ryder’s eyes widened. “That’s what Dorian, my best friend, keeps calling him. Dr. Dick.”
“Apt.”
“It is. In hindsight, I feel so stupid.”
“Why?”
Ryder frowned. “I’d think that’s obvious. We were together for five years. How did I never notice it? And not only the cheating but a lot of other red flags as well.”
Oh, the pain in that statement… Branson felt it deep in his soul, even though Ryder had spoken in a flat voice with only a hint of the emotions he had to feel. “I refuse to accept that if you don’t see someone else’s bad behavior, that makes you stupid. It’s not stupid to trust someone you’re with, especially not for such a long time. I’m not an expert on relationships, but I’d argue it’s the norm to trust your partner. So the fault is not with you, Ry. It’s with Dr. Dick.”
“But if I…” Ryder sighed. “That’s wishful thinking, isn’t it?”
“What, that if you had done things differently, he wouldn’t have cheated on you? Yes. The blame lies with him, not with anything you did. Cheating is always a choice, and he made that choice time and again. How can you blame yourself for that?”
“Oh, quite easily,” Ryder said with a touch of humor. “I have no trouble at all putting all the blame with myself…even though rationally, I know you’re right. It’s unsettling, as I’m not someone who’s guided by my emotions.”
“This must’ve hurt you deeply.”
Ryder’s eyes clouded with sadness that hinted at even more behind his story. “It did. But we were talking about you and your lack of friends.”
Branson suppressed a smile at that blunt segue. “Technically, we were talking about me wanting to be friends with you.”
Ryder pushed his glasses back up. “Right.”
“So what do you say?”
“Even though I now understand you don’t have friends, I’m still baffled why you would pick me to build a friendship with. Aside from the fact that neither of us is straight and we both work for the CIA, we don’t seem to have much in common.”
Not straight.Branson loved the inclusive way Ryder had formulated that, even after he knew Branson had at least once been with another man. “I’m gay, to slap the correct label on me.”
“Okay.”
Ryder said nothing else, and it stung.
“Am I so awful that you don’t even want to get to know me better?” Branson couldn’t keep the hurt from his voice. Sure, he hadn’t expected him and Ryder to be BFFs instantly, but Ryder didn’t even seem the least bit interested in the possibility of a friendship.
“I offended you,” Ryder said slowly.
Branson swallowed. He hated how emotional this whole conversation made him. “Not offended, but it’s painful to realize you don’t even want to try to be friends.”
“I don’t have sufficient data to make that decision.”
“We’ve been working together for six weeks now.”
“Yeah, so? That doesn’t mean I know you.”
“I’m confused. We’ve shared plenty of lunches and talked about other things than work.”
“No, you ask me questions, and I talk about myself, but you don't.”
“What do you mean?”
“You always focus on others and distract attention from yourself.”
What was he talking about? That made no sense at all. “I’m still not sure I know what you mean.”
“You went fly-fishing and skydiving because someone else loved it, not you. You want to visit Peru because someone you were in love with wanted to go there. But what about you? What do you want or love or hate? I could fit what I know about you on a Post-it, and I wouldn’t even have to write small.”
Panic bubbled in his stomach. That wasn’t true…was it? It couldn’t be. That would imply he’d always been… No, Ryder had to be wrong.
Ryder cocked his head. “Want me to summarize what I know about you?”
He stopped talking after that and watched Branson expectantly, awaiting his reaction. Oh, he hadn’t meant it as a rhetorical question, then. “Yes?”
“I’m checking because I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
How much worse could it get? “I’ll take my chances.”
Ryder took a deep breath. “I know you lived in various countries and speak several languages and that you’re fantastic at your job. Your father is a US ambassador, you’re gay and once were in love with a French boy, and you’re a social butterfly who excels at adapting to others. I also know that despite my repeated protests, you keep calling me Ry and that you seem to derive some perverse pleasure out of teasing me. You rarely talk about yourself, and that appears to be a deliberate choice. Now please tell me, what in all that should give me the idea that we’d have something in common other than working here and being gay? What in all that tells me you’d be a good friend to me, someone who respects me and the boundaries I set?”
For once in his life, Branson didn’t know what to say, struck mute by Ryder’s honest and factual analysis. Ryder hadn’t been out to hurt him, to hit him where Branson would feel it. He’d given the facts as he’d observed them, unfiltered and straight. And that it made Branson sound like a selfish, shallow person? Well, that wasn’t his fault. Nope, that was all Branson, and once that truth sank its claws into him, a deep sadness filled him. He didn’t like what he saw in the mirror at all.
